Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-04-18-Speech-3-356-000"
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"en.20120418.21.3-356-000"2
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"Mr President, perhaps the French conservatives need the comradeship of Georges Marchais to win the election. That is a different issue, however.
President Barroso, I listened to what you said very carefully. I can support much of what you have said. However, I ask myself whether that is really what the Commission is doing. When I look at what is being demanded in the Troika, for example – sorry to come back to that – I see that far too short a deadline is still being demanded for balancing budgets. How do you answer Mr Rajoy when he quite rightly points out that he cannot meet this deadline? What do you say to Ms Lagarde, what do you tell Mr Zoellick, when they point out that the policy of budget balancing that is being pursued is far too narrow and short-sighted?
Just as before, the Commission is still calling for more flexibility and less security in many countries. That is a misunderstanding of the concept of flexicurity: less security and more flexibility. Moreover, just as before, it is believed that the solution lies in marginalising unions and workers, rather than ensuring that they also take responsibility. What we want is a genuine growth strategy. However, President Barroso, if you say ‘Well, that is subsidiarity’, then I would counter that subsidiarity applies to the budget, too. Even you cannot resolve the budget problems, yet you are pushing for us to have common legislation. Why is it that when it comes to employment policy, we only get declarations, wishes and requests? Yet for the budget we have strict laws, obligations and sanctions. That is not a balanced situation, and we cannot accept it.
We need a genuine growth policy. That is what we are calling for. If Mr Sarkozy points out to his challenger François Hollande that writing the word ‘growth’ in a treaty is not enough in order to achieve it, why should he then need a treaty for fiscal union? Why has he not already been pursuing a growth policy for a long time? It is entirely possible to do so. I have greater confidence in the Financial Times, which says
. As this proves, where growth is concerned, the Financial Times is more progressive than Mr Sarkozy. I have already mentioned what Mr Zoellick said recently and what Ms Lagarde said at yesterday’s presentation. We are demanding a great deal from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, we are not prepared to pursue a policy that allows the IMF to support us appropriately. Ms Lagarde is calling for lasting fiscal initiatives that provide sufficient room to stimulate growth.
If you therefore present an employment package, if you present a growth strategy that we can support, then you must also tell your colleagues who go out into the countries and look at their budgetary policy that a budget policy that allows growth is also to be practised there. That is also something that I demand of the Commission: a budget policy that allows growth. That is the only way we will really achieve growth.
Unfortunately, Mr Draghi is not here, but naturally, this is also related to the European Central Bank (ECB). Much of what the ECB is doing, it is actually doing without appropriate support from policy, although the European Central Bank is, of course, also tasked with supporting the general economic policy of the EU. Many of those who criticise the ECB tend to overlook that fact. It is therefore not necessarily the case that rules need to be changed beforehand. I having nothing against our changing the rules in the way proposed by Mr Sarkozy. However, we have to conduct a growth policy that corresponds to what the ECB is trying to achieve as a support vehicle.
President Barroso, I do not deny that there are also a few positive proposals. You have stuck your neck out where the financial transaction tax is concerned. On that front, we are still waiting for the Council, Mr Daul, and for the members of the governments, who are still extremely hesitant. You have now presented an employment package. It contains lots of approaches. Some of it is too ambivalent for us; some of it has not been expressed in sufficiently clear terms. Anyone who reads the statistics clearly, however, will see that the countries that are successful have not achieved that success by getting rid of social security and the influence of the unions; on the contrary. You only have to look at Germany and my own country, Austria, which is also giving the lie once again to the idea that we absolutely have to reduce social security and that more flexibility and less social security is a growth strategy. That is not a growth strategy.
I support what you said regarding the European capital markets, that we can borrow money. I very much support what you said regarding the European Investment Bank, which could have started doing more a long time ago. Yet the problem remains that we are doing too little to counter unemployment, and youth unemployment in particular. President Barroso, it is not simply an economic issue. You know that very well. It is also a social issue and, in the final event, a political issue. How are we supposed to save political democracy in Europe when so many people – so many young people – are unemployed and giving up hope? If they despair of this Europe and despair of democracy in Europe, then eventually it leads to their electing extremist parties. That is the great challenge that we face.
To quote Mr Zoellick once more, ‘show people who want to work that you want them to work’. That is our job, and that is what we must do. Otherwise, I fear that we will be on a similar course to the Titanic. If we want to avoid heading for an economic, political and social iceberg, then it is essential that what is in the employment package is transformed into actual legislation. Declarations are not enough. We need strong, binding legislation in the area of employment policy too."@en1
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"‘It is encouraging that an increasing number of politicians, including François Hollande, the French presidential hopeful candidate, are calling for a European growth strategy’"1
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